The morning started out as a normal day in village. I got up
around 6:30 to the sound of my family starting their morning chores and greeting each
other. I pulled my water, made my tea,
and used the rest of the warm water for my bucket bath. I knew there was an event in Dioro so I dressed
in a full Malian outfit and carefully braided my hair. Little did I know I was
getting ready to meet the creator of one of the biggest NGO’s in Mali, Jeffrey Sachs, and Bono
from U2!!
The Millennium Villages Project is an NGO that has been working
in Dioro for a long time now. They built a clinic for the community and train
and pay community health workers to do Malaria testing and reporting. My Malian counterpart, Samaila Coulibaly, is
one of their best. He goes well above the 100 family a month requirement. Together they have saved many lives by
significantly reducing Malaria deaths in Dioro.
The percentages of deaths are down and the clinic is beautiful
and functioning but there are still several flaws with PVM. Bad management,
corruption, and the sustainability factor just to name a few. Pouring in lots
of money and seeing positive results is great but what happens when they stop
funding the program? Who is going to buy the rapid Malaria tests? How is the
community going to pay for the medication? The community health workers will no longer receive a pay check and will more than likely lose interest in volunteering because the
“good guys” failed them. In Jeffrey Sachs' speech at the clinic he said that
they were happy to be able to support them until 2015 and then their hearts
will be with them. Wait?! What?!
This is where I come in. I have one year left in Dioro and
plan on doing what I can to bring some sort of sustainability to the program.
One month ago I rolled out a training program “Keneya Ton Dioro” meaning Health
in Dioro. Samaila and I compiled 11
preventative health questions for the volunteers to ask when visiting
compounds. The training was very successful and all 9 relais completed 20 surveys
in one month. This gives me 180 surveys to collect data from. Treating sickness is
great but preventing it is a lot cheaper and a lot more sustainable. If we can
educate the community so that they understand why it’s important to sleep under
mosquito nets and cover water we can also significantly reduce Malaria. The
questions also spark great conversations about hygiene and preventing diarrhea,
another big killer in Africa. People
need to be talking about washing their hands with soap, treating water before
consumption, and exclusively breast feeding infants until they are at least 6
months old. Another part of the survey is asking about maternal health. Who in
the compound is currently pregnant? Have they been to a prenatal consultation?
If not, what’s prohibiting them? Do they have a birthing plan? Educating women on these issues will also
save many lives.
So that is all great but the big question now is, how do we
retain free health workers?? I have no money to pay them a salary and if I got a
grant it would only last for a fixed time. How can we take this project and
make it lucrative? Sustainable? The best way from what I’ve seen since I've been here is to start an
IGA, an income generating activity.
Teach a few of the relais how to make clothe and plastic diapers in an
inexpensive way and sell to families as they are visiting compounds. Women
spend a lot of money on their clothes here and take a lot of pride in their
appearances. They carry babies on their backs and a lot of times are urinated and
defecated on. A child not wearing pants while playing in the dirt can also cause bacterial infections so I’m seeing this project as a win win. The other
IGA comes from a friend of mine working with Solar Energy. A lot of families can’t afford a flat rate
payment each month for electricity and have felt cheated in the past if their
consumption was low for the month. This program allows them to buy energy
credit as they need it just like they do with their cell phones. Amazing! With
this project just rolling out they are finding they have a lot of extra energy.
Sebastian had a great idea to buy freezers and sell ice for extra income for women’s
groups. I’m going to use the freezer in Dioro Tinding for Keneya Ton Dioro. The
relais can sell the ice and use the money collectively to pay themselves each
month. Put all the money from each IGA into an account and split it 9
ways. There are of course flaws in this
system. What if some realis are selling more than others? What about the people
taking time to make them? Will it be fair? I’m working on all that. I hope that it will
all fall into place as we go. First I just need to show them ways to make extra
money and hope to God it motivates them to keep working hard and save more
lives.
Thank you Jeffrey Sachs and Bono for the pick me
up. It was very inspirational to have you here. Thank you Bono for saying I was
your hero. I know it’s silly but I’m not taking that lightly. You set up a
great program, now I hope to ELEVATE it by making it sustainable.
You make me feel like I
can fly
So high
El-Elevation
The days when everything goes wrong and I feel like giving
up I think of Fa. He is a seven year old boy who has stolen my heart. He can’t
walk because of an over constricted thigh muscle. This little guy only has a
few articles of clothing, very few toys, and isn’t allowed to attend school but
NOTHING gets him down. He is always smiling and laughing and shares everything
I give to him with whoever is around him. He comes from a big family with four
kids at home and the four oldest kids in school. Fa’s parents are spending a lot of money on school
for the oldest children so they are backed into a corner and can barely afford
meals every day yet alone send the other four kids to school. I love this family very much and do all I can
to help which, unfortunately, is not very much. We cook lunches together and I brought back a
ton of toys for the kids. I feel very lucky for the time I have with them and
even luckier for the time I get with Fa. He’ll crawl up onto my back and I’ll
secure him there with a Malian scarf and we’ll bike to my house where we can
get some uninterrupted quality time together.
Last week we cooked Mac and cheese, thanks to my friend Ashley in WI, then
watched one my childhood favorite movies “Land before Time.” He loved the food
and really loved the movie except he held his little hands over his eyes when
Sharp Tooth came on the computer screen. I forgot how scary that T-rex was.. We don’t get much time together but it’s
always spent eating delicious food, watching cartoons, and laughing
uncontrollably. He reminds me that life
is what you make of it. Be grateful for what you have and never forget to give away what you don't need.
